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Friday, January 22, 2016

Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) -
This morning in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Francis
received in audience the President of the Commonwealth of Dominica,
Charles Angelo Savarin, who subsequently met with Cardinal Secretary
of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Paul Richard
Gallagher, secretary for Relations with States.

During the cordial discussions,
reference was made to existing good bilateral relations, expressing
the opportunity for a fruitful joint collaboration between the State
and the Catholic Church, who offers a significant contribution to the
promotion of the dignity of the person, as well as in the sectors of
the education of the young and assistance to those most in need.

Finally, attention turned to various
themes of regional and global relevance, with particular reference to
the protection of the environment and the theme of climate change and
natural disasters, which cause grave damages and claim many victims
among the Island’s population.

Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) –
This morning in the Clementine Hall the Holy Father received in
audience the members of the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota for
the inauguration of the Judicial Year, and reiterated to them that
their ministry has always been of great help to the Successor of
Peter, "so that the Church, inseparably linked to the family,
continues to proclaim the plan of God the Creator and the Redeemer on
the sacredness and beauty of the family institution. A mission that
is always current, but of special relevance in our time".

Along with the definition of the Roman
Rota as the Tribunal of the Family, the Holy Father emphasised
another of its prerogatives as "the Tribunal of the truth of the
sacred bond. And these two aspects are complementary. Indeed the
Church can show the merciful and indefectible love of God for
families, especially those wounded by sin and by the trials of life,
and at the same time, proclaim the essential truth of marriage
according to God's plan. This service is entrusted principally to the
Pope and the bishops".

He went on toe refer to the synodal
path on the theme of the family that during the last two years has
made possible a "profound and wise discernment, thanks to which
the Church, among other things, has indicated to the world that there
can be no confusion between the family beloved by God and any other
type of union", and highlighted that the activity of the Rota,
"both in judging and in contributing to permanent formation,
assists and promotes the opus veritatis. When the Church, by means of
your service, proposes to declare the truth on marriage in a concrete
case, for the good of the faithful, she keeps in mind at the same
time those who, by their free choice or through unhappy circumstances
live in a state of objective error, continue to receive Christ's
merciful love, and therefore that of the Church herself".

"The family and the Church, at
different levels, contribute to accompanying the human being up to
the end of his or her existence. And they do so certainly with the
teachings that they transmit, but also with their very nature as
communities of love and life. Indeed, if the family can be described
as a 'domestic church', to the Church we might justly apply the title
of the family of God. … Precisely because she is a mother and a
teacher, the Church knows that among Christians some have a strong
faith, formed by charity, strengthened by good catechesis and
nurtured in prayer and sacramental life, whereas others have a weak
and neglected faith, unformed, uneducated or forgotten".

"It should be clearly affirmed
that the quality of faith is not an essential condition for
matrimonial consent, which according to the longstanding doctrine,
can be undermined only at a natural level. Indeed, the habitus fidei
is infused in the moment of Baptism and continues to flow
mysteriously into the soul, even when the faith is not developed or
psychologically appears to be absent. It is not unusual for
newly-weds, drawn to marriage by the instinctus naturae, at the
moment of celebration have a limited awareness of the fullness of
God's plan, and only later, in family life, discover all that God the
Creator and Redeemer has established for them. The lack of formation
in faith and also an error regarding the unity, indissolubility and
sacramental dignity of marriage may vitiate matrimonial consent only
if they determine will. It is precisely for this reason that errors
regarding the sacramental nature of marriage must be evaluated very
carefully".

"The Church, therefore, with a
renewed sense of responsibility, continues to propose marriage in its
essential elements – offspring, the good of spouses, unity,
indissolubility, sacramentality – not as an ideal for the few,
despite modern models centred on the ephemeral and transitory, but as
a reality that, in Christ's grace, can be lived by all baptised
faithful. And therefore this gives greater importance to the pastoral
urgency that involves all structures of the Church in convergence
towards a common intention, an adequate preparation for marriage, as
a sort of new catechumenate, greatly hoped for by some Synod
Fathers".

Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) –
"Communication and mercy" is the title of Pope Francis'
Message for the fiftieth World Day of Social Communications, to be
held on 8 May. The Message is symbolically signed by the Holy Father
on Sunday 24 January 2016, feast of St. Francis of Sales, patron of
journalists. The following is the full text of the Message:

"Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Holy Year of Mercy invites all of
us to reflect on the relationship between communication and mercy.
The Church, in union with Christ, the living incarnation of the
Father of Mercies, is called to practise mercy as the distinctive
trait of all that she is and does. What we say and how we say it, our
every word and gesture, ought to express God’s compassion,
tenderness and forgiveness for all. Love, by its nature, is
communication; it leads to openness and sharing. If our hearts and
actions are inspired by charity, by divine love, then our
communication will be touched by God’s own power.

As sons and daughters of God, we are
called to communicate with everyone, without exception. In a
particular way, the Church’s words and actions are all meant to
convey mercy, to touch people’s hearts and to sustain them on their
journey to that fullness of life which Jesus Christ was sent by the
Father to bring to all. This means that we ourselves must be willing
to accept the warmth of Mother Church and to share that warmth with
others, so that Jesus may be known and loved. That warmth is what
gives substance to the word of faith; by our preaching and witness,
it ignites the 'spark' which gives them life.

Communication has the power to build
bridges, to enable encounter and inclusion, and thus to enrich
society. How beautiful it is when people select their words and
actions with care, in the effort to avoid misunderstandings, to heal
wounded memories and to build peace and harmony. Words can build
bridges between individuals and within families, social groups and
peoples. This is possible both in the material world and the digital
world. Our words and actions should be such as to help us all escape
the vicious circles of condemnation and vengeance which continue to
ensnare individuals and nations, encouraging expressions of hatred.
The words of Christians ought to be a constant encouragement to
communion and, even in those cases where they must firmly condemn
evil, they should never try to rupture relationships and
communication.

For this reason, I would like to invite
all people of good will to rediscover the power of mercy to heal
wounded relationships and to restore peace and harmony to families
and communities. All of us know how many ways ancient wounds and
lingering resentments can entrap individuals and stand in the way of
communication and reconciliation. The same holds true for
relationships between peoples. In every case, mercy is able to
create a new kind of speech and dialogue. Shakespeare put it
eloquently when he said: 'The quality of mercy is not strained. It
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It
is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes' (The
Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I).

Our political and diplomatic language
would do well to be inspired by mercy, which never loses hope. I ask
those with institutional and political responsibility, and those
charged with forming public opinion, to remain especially attentive
to the way they speak of those who think or act differently or those
who may have made mistakes. It is easy to yield to the temptation to
exploit such situations to stoke the flames of mistrust, fear and
hatred. Instead, courage is needed to guide people towards processes
of reconciliation. It is precisely such positive and creative
boldness which offers real solutions to ancient conflicts and the
opportunity to build lasting peace. 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they will be called children of God'.

How I wish that our own way of
communicating, as well as our service as pastors of the Church, may
never suggest a prideful and triumphant superiority over an enemy, or
demean those whom the world considers lost and easily discarded.
Mercy can help mitigate life’s troubles and offer warmth to those
who have known only the coldness of judgement. May our way of
communicating help to overcome the mindset that neatly separates
sinners from the righteous. We can and we must judge situations of
sin – such as violence, corruption and exploitation – but we may
not judge individuals, since only God can see into the depths of
their hearts. It is our task to admonish those who err and to
denounce the evil and injustice of certain ways of acting, for the
sake of setting victims free and raising up those who have fallen.
The Gospel of John tells us that 'the truth will make you free'. The
truth is ultimately Christ himself, whose gentle mercy is the
yardstick for measuring the way we proclaim the truth and condemn
injustice. Our primary task is to uphold the truth with love. Only
words spoken with love and accompanied by meekness and mercy can
touch our sinful hearts. Harsh and moralistic words and actions risk
further alienating those whom we wish to lead to conversion and
freedom, reinforcing their sense of rejection and defensiveness.

Some feel that a vision of society
rooted in mercy is hopelessly idealistic or excessively indulgent.
But let us try and recall our first experience of relationships,
within our families. Our parents loved us and valued us for who we
are more than for our abilities and achievements. Parents naturally
want the best for their children, but that love is never dependent on
their meeting certain conditions. The family home is one place where
we are always welcome. I would like to encourage everyone to see
society not as a forum where strangers compete and try to come out on
top, but above all as a home or a family, where the door is always
open and where everyone feels welcome.

For this to happen, we must first
listen. Communicating means sharing, and sharing demands listening
and acceptance. Listening is much more than simply hearing. Hearing
is about receiving information, while listening is about
communication, and calls for closeness. Listening allows us to get
things right, and not simply to be passive onlookers, users or
consumers. Listening also means being able to share questions and
doubts, to journey side by side, to banish all claims to absolute
power and to put our abilities and gifts at the service of the common
good.

Listening is never easy. Many times it
is easier to play deaf. Listening means paying attention, wanting to
understand, to value, to respect and to ponder what the other person
says. It involves a sort of martyrdom or self-sacrifice, as we try to
imitate Moses before the burning bush: we have to remove our sandals
when standing on the 'holy ground' of our encounter with the one who
speaks to me. Knowing how to listen is an immense grace, it is a gift
which we need to ask for and then make every effort to practice.

Emails, text messages, social networks
and chats can also be fully human forms of communication. It is not
technology which determines whether or not communication is
authentic, but rather the human heart and our capacity to use wisely
the means at our disposal. Social networks can facilitate
relationships and promote the good of society, but they can also lead
to further polarisation and division between individuals and groups.
The digital world is a public square, a meeting-place where we can
either encourage or demean one another, engage in a meaningful
discussion or unfair attacks. I pray that this Jubilee Year, lived in
mercy, 'may open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might
know and understand one another better; and that it may eliminate
every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every
form of violence and discrimination'. The internet can help us to be
better citizens. Access to digital networks entails a responsibility
for our neighbour whom we do not see but who is nonetheless real and
has a dignity which must be respected. The internet can be used
wisely to build a society which is healthy and open to sharing.

Communication, wherever and however it
takes place, has opened up broader horizons for many people. This is
a gift of God which involves a great responsibility. I like to refer
to this power of communication as 'closeness. The encounter between
communication and mercy will be fruitful to the degree that it
generates a closeness which cares, comforts, heals, accompanies and
celebrates. In a broken, fragmented and polarised world, to
communicate with mercy means to help create a healthy, free and
fraternal closeness between the children of God and all our brothers
and sisters in the one human family".

Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) –
This morning the a press conference was held to present the Holy
Father's Message for the fiftieth World Day of Social Communications.
The panel was composed of Msgr. Dario Vigano, prefect of the
Secretariat for Communication, Paolo Ruffini, director of TV2000, and
Marinella Perroni of the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm, Rome.

The prefect mentioned that this World
Day of Social Communications, which the Church celebrates on May 8,
is the fiftieth in chronological order: an important fact that
relates to Vatican Council II, which fifty years ago issued the
Decree on the tools of social communication, "Inter mirifica".
It is also the only World Day established by the Council, and on this
occasion it is also situated in the context of the great
Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, to which the theme of the Day refers
directly. Finally, it will be the first World Day of Social
Communications held following the creation by the Holy Father of the
Secretariat for Communications.

Following this preamble, Msgr. Vigano
emphasised that mercy is the distinctive feature of the Church's way
of acting and of being. The relationship between the Church and mercy
is not an extrinsic one, or indeed accidental … but rather
intrinsic, constitutive, part of the very identity of the Church. The
experience of the Pentecost is the beginning of the historic
experience of the Church. The Church carries the memory of Jesus and
therefore cannot interpret the words of His announcement other than
in relation to mercy. They are works awaiting by those who think they
are far from the God of mercy of Whom we often have a distorted
image, such as that of God as a ruthless judge unable to engage with
the limits of suffering. … For the men and women of today, for
Jesus' Church, these are the words to offer as an antidote to the
harsh words of precepts pronounced by those who make accusations of
prevailing relativism and the irrevocability of values. .. The Church
called to participate in the messianic mission must know how to live
in a true and authentic humanity. She must learn from Jesus how to
express mercy in words of hope and life and in engaging gestures,
letting us be touched by human experience and knowing, as Pope
Francis often reminds us, how to touch the flesh of the least among
us".

The second point was the relationship
between silence and listening. Msgr. Vigano cited the Swiss
philosopher Max Picard, who explained that contemporary man has
become an appendix to noise, atrophying in a context of words shouted
instead of spoken, that reduce to a minimum our capacity to listen
and cause a lack of attention. "Listening is a necessary act for
the development of communication and it requires above all silence,
an indispensable condition for receiving each word pronounced and for
understanding its meaning. … We communicate only to the extent that
we are are the same time listeners, and Pope Francis' attention to
this dichotomy is constant". Pope Benedict XVI too paid great
attention to this issue, when in the Message for the 2012 World Day
of Social Communications he wrote that when messages and information
are abundant, silence becomes essential to enable us to distinguish
what is important from what is insignificant and secondary".

The prefect concluded by quoting
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote that the merciful "have an
irresistible love for the down-trodden, the sick, the wretched, the
wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They go
out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No
distress is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity". "It
is the blessing of mercy that the Church is called to live, first and
foremost in her relationships as the Christian community is not an
elite group, nor is it made up of the perfect. St. Paul … invites
us all to recognise the starting point of Christian and ecclesial
life, which is God's love and, by His grace, participation in His
holiness".

Finally, Msgr. Vigano returned to the
theme of silence: "From this Gehenna of noise that is our daily
life, from this wind tunnel of gossip, and chatter there arises
spontaneously a nostalgia for silence, the wish to mute words of
manipulation, to discover the words of silence. Contemporary man,
almost without realising it, is calling out with Verlaine, give me
silence, and the love of mystery.

The director of TV2000, Paolo Ruffini,
spoke about the need for television able to look upon the world with
the eyes of mercy, without being afraid of being rooted in reality.
"It must not be closed up in its own studies. … It chooses
closeness as a criterion for understanding, for surprising itself and
for surprising, for acting, for choosing. … It draws near to people
in flesh and blood in the real world, not in the virtual one … and
is able to communicate reality without surrendering to stereotypes,
or to the vicious circles of condemnation and vengeance which, as the
Pope writes, continue to ensnare us".

Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) -
Yesterday, 21 January, the Holy Father Francis received in a private
audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation
for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the Congregation
to promulgate the following decrees:

MIRACLES

- Blessed Stanislaw of Jesus and Mary
(né Jan Papczyński), Polish founder of the Congregation of Marians
of the Immaculate Conception. (1631-1701);

- Venerable Servant of God Elisabetta
Sanna, Italian layperson and widow, of the Third Order of St.
Francis, member of the Catholic Apostolic Union founded by St.
Vincent Pallotti (1788-1857);

MARTYRDOM

- Venerable Servant of God Engelmar
Unzeitig (né Hubert), German professed priest of the Congregation of
Missionaries of Mariannhill, killed in hatred of the faith in 1945);

- Servants of God Genaro Fueyo
Castañón, Spanish diocesan priest, and three companions, laypersons
killed in hatred of the faith in 1936;

- Servant of God Iustus Takayama Ukon,
Japanese layperson, killed in hatred of the faith in 1615.

HEROIC VIRTUES

- Servant of God Arsenio da Trigolo (né
Giuseppe Migliavacca), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor
Capuchin, Italian founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mary
Most Holy Consolatrix (1849-1909);

- Servant of God Maria Luisa of the
Most Holy Sacrament (née Maria Velotti), Italian member of the Third
Order of St. Francis and founder of the Franciscan Sisters Adorers of
the Holy Cross (1826-1886).

Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) –
The date of the Holy Father's letter to Cardinal Sarah, prefect of
the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the
Sacraments, regarding the selection of people for the rite of the
Washing of feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is 20 December 2014, not
2015, as erroneously implied in yesterday's Vatican Information
Service bulletin. We apologise to our readers.